


Retreat

by Lapin_Agile (Conversant)



Category: Alternity - A Harry Potter Alternate Universe, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter Alternity - Fandom
Genre: Blackstory, Canon Backstory, Canon Compliant, Gen, HP Alternity, RPG
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 20:01:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4800452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Conversant/pseuds/Lapin_Agile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally written 2008-2010. This is part of the "Blackstory" series - backstories featuring the Blacks -  and was written while I played Regulus in the RPG HP Alternity. All the actions of the characters depicted were approved by other players at the time it was written. This story takes place prior to Alternity's divergence from canonical time- and plot-lines, and is canon compliant. </p><p>It was difficult, finding what to do with himself now that it was just himself Reg had to consider. Sirius had always been there, and now he wasn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Retreat

 

**5 September 1970**

 

‘ _Of course, one saw it coming. Wayward from the start. A miserable, whingeing toddler and a headstrong, wilful lad, always muttering under his breath as he left a room._ ’

‘I don’t know how you took that notion. You’ve only a view of one room in this house.’

‘ _I have extremely fine hearing._ ’ 

Mother’s hex blew the portrait off the wall with such force that the frame ricocheted off the window sill and cracked as it struck the floor. Thereafter, Phineas Nigellus Black was moved from the parlour and hung in an infrequently used guest room on the second floor, which was a pity because Regulus had liked to hide there sometimes with a book or a quiet game. No matter how nice it was to curl into the draperies behind the second bed on a sunny afternoon, it was no safe retreat after that. Regulus was forced to find sanctuary elsewhere.

 

 

**5 October 1970**

 

It was difficult, finding what to do with himself now that it was just himself he had to consider. His whole life he’d had Sirius across the landing and that was better than a roomful of books and puzzles and gadgets. Sirius always had something going or could be pestered into something, even if only a fight.He’d always been there, and now he wasn’t.

Regulus had expected it to be worst at night. That’s why he’d nicked Sirius’s old sleep shirt from his partly-filled trunk. It did help. And Reg still slipped across the moon-slashed landing to his brother’s bed when he had trouble sleeping. For a while, he could imagine it still smelled of Sirius. A little.

Mostly, he pestered Kreacher to tell him stories until he slipped away into sleep with the elf’s unpleasant-pleasing voice snuffling out a tale.

But, really, nights weren’t the worst of it at all. It was all the hours of the day. It took less time for lessons now that Sirius wasn’t hounding him, and reading alone was lonely. If he’d thought it would be nice to have Mother to himself, it wasn’t. She was a hundred times worse now she realised the need to see that her second child didn’t ruin himself as the first had done. He couldn’t even count on Father to take the brunt of it; Father suddenly had a thousand meetings at the club and elsewhere.

For weeks she refused to step beyond the threshold of 12 Grimmauld Place and refused to admit any callers. Regulus had never been so sorry for a holiday from his tutor, nor ever so grateful when Mother allowed M Mandeville to resume his schedule. It was as if someone had died, those first dire weeks. For days after the news came, Regulus hardly dared cross a room lest the floorboards creak and irritate Mother’s nerves.

And then it passed. Mother returned to routine, hosting the October Guild of Purity tea; thereafter, she resumed her commitments to the Witches Institute and the Symposium, and accepted callers as often as ever she had, which is to say only when she deemed the caller worth her attention.

 

 

They were in the parlour at Mother’s writing table, addressing invitations--’ _Don’t rush, Regulus. Uch, no. Don’t be ridiculous. A restrained flourish is admirable, but now you’ve gone all loopy. Set that one aside and begin it again.’ ‘Yes, Mother.’ ‘I’ve seen what you can do when you take proper care, Regulus. See that you do._ ’--when a pair of cards appeared on the salver with a muted pop. Even the house magic was reluctant to set Mother off.

‘Oh, for Morgana’s--’ Mother stood up abruptly. The cards announced Mrs Averton-Bilge and Mrs Travers; there was no question of pretending to be out.

The writing table folded itself away beside the far wall as Kreacher popped into the room.

‘Why people never stop in at a time when I could reasonably send you off for your tea is quite beyond me. So disobliging.’ Mother eyed him.

Regulus held out his hands for inspection. He shivered as the cleansing spell removed all trace of ink from his fingers and itched a path across his palms before swirling quite through him to settle at his core. It always made his own magic stir and coil in an unsettling way. Or maybe that was more to do with the look Mother struck him with in moments like this.

‘Stay to be introduced, but then excuse yourself.’ She cupped his chin, the better to fix him with her gaze. ‘And go quietly. Don’t let me find you making any disturbance while I have guests in this house.’

It was something in the way she’d phrased it--‘Don’t let me find you’--that made him think to play _Obscurus_ that day. A silly game to play by one’s self, but, of course, he wasn’t exactly. He was hiding from her. And yet, as always, where did he seek refuge? In his school room? In his bed? With Kreacher in the kitchens? Or in the attics? Never.

Regulus left the parlour and mounted the stairs. One landing and then the next. He passed Father’s closed door. And whispered the spell to silently open Mother’s.

  

 

**10 October 1970**

 

Mother was sitting before her mirror when Regulus found her. She had removed her rings and was massaging her fingers. A little alabaster pot lay open before her.

When her eye caught his movement in her mirror, she winced ever so slightly, her always-straight spine going utterly stiff.

‘Kreacher sa--’

‘Come here. Let me look at you,’ she said, reaching as she turned to tug his collar straight. ‘Don’t slouch.’

Regulus squared his shoulders, tensing as she pointed her wand at his chin to erase some imagined smudge.

‘And don’t grimace.’ She fixed him with _that_ look and added: ‘You’ll appear unconcerned tonight, and regardless of what anyone says or asks, you’ll say no more in return than “Yes, ma’am,” “No, ma’am,” or “May I refill your cup?” Do you understand me, Regulus?’ 

‘Yes, Mother. I’m not to-’

‘That will do. Tell Kreacher the tea should be scalding or I’ll scald him.’

She had turned back to the mirror and was adjusting the placement of a comb in her upswept hair. Regulus knew better than to linger, but it was notable: he’d never seen her fuss over her hair once it had been set right the first time.

 

 

He held his post by the samovar as though he were charged with defending the inner sanctum. He only panicked the once when old Mrs Jugson broke through all his defences and positioned herself for the killing blow.

‘A _Gryffindor_?’ 

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘I told your mother years ago it would come to no good, coddling her sons as she does.’

‘No, ma’am.’

 _‘No_ , ma’am? You disagree?’

‘No, er. No, ma’am. May I refill your cup, then?’

‘No good at all. And you’re as like that one as two cherries on a single stem. Look fine to the eye, but in fact, they’re rotting on the bough.’

Regulus reached for her cup, but the old woman batted his hand away.

‘Look at me, boy. You don’t seem surprised by it. Not even the least bit shamed.' 

Regulus wondered what shame looked like if not the crimson he could feel blazing on his cheeks. He picked up the bell and rang it, rather more furiously than was needed.

Kreacher popped into view at his elbow, bearing a tray of fresh cups and spoons, and the two of them fussed over refitting the table just long enough for the old woman to scent other prey in another quarter.

 

 

On tiptoe, he slipped through Mother’s sitting room and bedchamber and withdrawing room to the dressing room beyond. In the heart of her inner sanctum, he found refuge, crawling noiselessly into the deepest, darkest depths of her most expansive wardrobe, pressing in amongst her heavy satin-lined furs, and pulling down his favourite, the generous ermine wrap Mother chose for evenings at the Opera where she would drape it over her chair.

Sometimes, when the boys made up the number in the Blacks’ box, she would allow Regulus to nestle into its softness and drowse if the singing didn’t hold him at the edge of his seat through the later acts. It was only afternoon now and he was too old for this sort of thing--hiding in wardrobes, honestly--but Regulus curled himself into the ermine’s folds and lay quiet as a sleeping stoat while the hourglass counted the minutes until he would have to present himself again, the days until his brother’s first holiday, the months until he, too, could escape Grimmauld Place for school.

 


End file.
